Veronica Jones

During the Black history program, they asked everybody to stand up, they going to sing “Lift Every Voice and Sing.”  So everybody was standing up, and I was down in the front row, and I looked around, and some of the white teachers had stood up, and they opened their doors to let — white teachers opened their door and let white students out.  So we protested.  I think it was in the auditorium for a week, two weeks, whatever, we didn’t go to any classes.  We came to school, we didn’t go to any classes, we didn’t go to lunch, or nothing.  And they had to come back and apologize with us.  But meantime, when me and Brenda was in that auditorium, we looked at each other and said okay, so some of our white friends would come and they’ll knock on the door and say, “Can we speak to Ronnie and Brenda?”  So we would come up to the hallway and they said, “Are you all mad at us?”  I said, “No, we’re not mad at you two.”  But I said, “This is something that we have to do as a Black race.”  And they said, “Oh, okay.”